Trail Blazers in need of that elusive start-to-finish outstanding game against Mavericks

Ross Hamilton/The OregonianAndre Miller and the Blazers go to battle again versus Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavericks tonight at the Rose Garden.

Let's skip forward a day and imagine what the Portland Trail Blazers will be doing Friday, the day after they play Game 6 of their first-round series against Dallas.

They might be boarding an 11 a.m. flight to Dallas, where they would practice later in the day to prepare for Saturday's Game 7.

Or, they might be getting into exit interviews to close the 2010-11 season.

Philadelphia coach Doug Collins said it last night after his team was eliminated in its series against Miami: "You wake up the next day, it's over."

Which is it going to be for the Blazers?

Before the series, there was a lot of talk of how the Blazers, despite having nine fewer regular season wins than Dallas, could take the best-of-seven series. Coach Nate McMillan even said his team respected, but did not fear, the Mavericks.

The series, for the most part, has been competitive, but the Blazers have not played a really outstanding game from start to finish. There have been stretches where they have looked really good, but they have not been able to sustain them.

It's also possible Dallas -- which is stocked with veterans with multiple All-Star Game appearances -- is simply the better team.

The Blazers -- because of injuries, trades and players not developing -- have an unbalanced roster, with not enough big players and a shortage of dependable point guards behind Andre Miller. They don't quite have the manpower to win easily unless they defend and rebound fiercely, limit turnovers and establish the faster tempo they want.

But that hardly means they cannot pull out this series. Certainly, it would help if Portland could find its shooting touch. And LaMarcus Aldridge -- whose scoring has dipped each game, going from 27 points in Game 1 to 24, 20, 18 and 12 -- needs to re-establish himself as an offensive force.

And someone needs to make a surprising contribution the way Jason Kidd, Peja Stojakovic and Tyson Chandler have for Dallas, and Brandon Roy has for Portland. Rudy Fernandez and Gerald Wallace are the big candidates for this.

• One of the more interesting quotes from yesterday's media session came from Aldridge, who deflected the notion that he needs to carry the team to victory -- something he did for a span of about two months this season -- or that Game 6 would be a defining moment of his career.

"No, I don't feel like it's a defining moment for me," he said. "I'm sorry if I should, but I don't. I feel like it's a team sport. I didn't get us here by myself. ... I feel like it's a defining moment for the team, as far as if we can bounce back from a tough loss, if we can pick up our defense, pick up our team play."

• The Blazers had a maintenance day Tuesday before returning to practice Wednesday. I asked Aldridge how he spent the mostly-free day and if he was able to put basketball out of his mind for a while.

"I watched the playoffs," he said. "But I tried not to think about it for a couple of hours or so. But when you're in the playoffs, it's all you know right now. I feel in the moment, thinking about it all the time."

McMillan had mentioned Tuesday that Aldridge appeared tired, and he's certainly carrying Portland's biggest load in this series. He's being defended by 7-foot centers Tyson Chandler and Brendan Haywood (or a zone), while also having to defend Dallas' best player, Dirk Nowitzki, who is all but impossible to stop.

Asked about being fatigued, Aldridge at first dismissed the notion, first saying, "I can be tired later."

But he also added: "Both teams probably feel a little fatigued, probably me more than anyone else. But it's all part of it, you know? I have to deal with it. I'll be all right."

• If you're the kind of Blazers fan who gets hope from numbers, here's one from the Dallas Morning News' Eddie Sefko. In the Dirk Nowitzki era, the Mavericks are 1-9 in Game 6s, including 0-5 on the road.

• A big key for the Mavericks is for Chandler to avoid foul trouble, which plagued him all series before he avoided it and he got 13 offensive rebounds to key Dallas' Game 5 victory, ESPNDallas.com's Jeff Caplan reports.